His guts turned to water. “Don’t even joke, Brigid.”

“Who’s joking?” She scowled, then turned to look back at the pale figure lying on the bed. “I’ll say this for you, she’s pretty enough…for a dead girl, that is.”

Tinwright swayed a little and had to grab the doorframe. “I told you, don’t joke! Please, let me in—I don’t want anyone to see me.” He edged past her and stopped. “Brigid, love, really truly, I’m grateful. I treated you badly and you’ve been more kind than I had any right to hope.”

“If you think that you can honey-talk me instead of paying me…”

“No, no! Here it is.” He pulled out the coin and put it in her hand. “I’ll never be able to thank you properly…”

“No, you won’t. Ah, well, the wee thing is all yours now, right and proper.” Brigid smirked. “I always knew you were a bit of an idiot, Matty, but this goes beyond anything I’d guessed.”

“Has she showed any signs of waking?”

“Some. A bit of moaning and tossing, like having a bad dream.” She threw her shawl over her shoulders. “Must go now. Conary will be furious, but maybe I can sweeten him up by working late. I’m never swiving with that old mackerel again if I can help it.”

“You are a true friend,” he said.

“And you’re an idiot, but I think I said that already.” She stepped out into the misty afternoon and pulled the door closed behind her.

The noise of Elan’s quiet breath did not change much, but somehow he knew that she was awake. He put down the book of sonnets and hurried to the side of the bed. Her eyes were moving, her face slackly puzzled.

“Where…where am I?” It was scarcely more than a whisper. “Is this some…some waiting-place?” She saw him moving and her eyes turned toward him, but for long moments they could not fix on him. “Who are you?”

He could only pray that the tanglewife’s potion had not injured her mind. “Matt Tinwright, my lady.”

For a moment she did not understand, perhaps did not even recognize the name, then her face twisted into anguish. “Oh, Matt. Did you take the poison, too? You sweet boy. You were meant to live.”

He took a breath, then another. “I…I did not take poison. You did not either, or at least not enough to die. You are alive.”

She shook her head and her eyes sagged closed again.

He had told her. She hadn’t heard him. Did that mean he was allowed to run away into the night and never look back? Not that he dared desert her, but the gods knew that almost anything would be preferable to standing before this woman and telling her he’d betrayed her trust…

“What?” Her eyes opened again, far more alert this time, but wide and frightened like those of a trapped animal. “What did you say?”

The moment to escape, if there had ever truly been such a moment, was gone. Tinwright wondered if a real man should offer to take real poison to make up for his crime. Perhaps, he reminded himself, but he wasn’t a real man—not that kind, anyway. “I said you’re not dead, my lady. Elan. You’re alive.”